Of Beauty and Wealth

As I was driving through the Rocky mountains last week I was struck by how much Beauty and wealth have in common and the more that I thought about it the more humbling it was.

Wealth, if you asked me if I am wealthy the first answer you would probably get after a hearty laugh is a resounding NO, you have to have money to be wealthy!!! In our society we measure wealth in terms of millions, billions or even thousands; but it always ends with dollars, not smiles, hugs, peaceful moments or even people whose lives you’ve touched.

This morning my 5 year old daughter came and cuddled with me for about 20 minutes, my almost 3 year old wanted to give me hugs and kisses and my 7 year old said “I love you daddy” before leaving for school, you can’t buy that so I am forced to ask myself am I wealthy??

I have recently been thinking a lot about the many people who have let me into their lives to capture their essence and memories and I think to myself am I wealthy??

I think of our family; this last year my mother in law has scared us a few times by going into the hospital with severe chest pain, yet as we prayed for her she came out of the hospital with the diagnosis that it was not a heart attack and again I ask myself as a family, are we wealthy??

Beauty; they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, are they on drugs?? If you showed the same image, person, flower, or just about anything to 10 different people you would likely get 10 different answers as to its beauty. If this is the case is there really any absolute as to whether someone or something is beautiful? When I think of beauty I think of my wife Sonya, I think of my kids, I think of my clients, and I think of the creation everywhere around me, but am I right, is it all really beautiful?

My kids love to do art, and some of the paintings that my 3 year old comes up with simply bewilder me and yet to him he is proud to show me his latest masterpiece. Is his art beautiful?

I used to think that beauty was in the eye of the beholder but I have come to realize that too many of us as beholders are simply too screwed up to see, recognize and appreciate the beauty around us. My new philosophy is this, Beauty is in the eye of the creator and our creator has blessed us all with an abundance of it. Beauty is all around us and we simply need to open our eyes to appreciate it, so too we are all blessed with an abundance of wealth and our wealth looks different to all of us, but it’s ours to appreciate all we have to do is to open up our eyes and recognise what we have been blessed with.

Beauty and wealth, they look different to all of us and yet all we need to do is look around us to recognize how much of it we are blessed with so the next time you look into a mirror open your eyes and look hard to see how beautiful you are and how much you bless the lives around you and you will realize just how beautiful and wealthy you really are.

Blessings,

Rodney